


Southern Hospitality

by bisexualamy



Series: Trans!Kirk Fics [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Trans Jim Kirk, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8783953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualamy/pseuds/bisexualamy
Summary: He’d had once heard that the best doctors know you, like really know you, in the way that they can diagnose you as you walk in the door, and the medical instruments are just a formality.  That you should know your doctor so well that it feels like visiting a friend instead of a sterile environment brimming with reminders of human mortality.  That a good doctor takes care of your soul, not just your body.  He hadn’t believed that when he’d first met Dr. McCoy, but hell if the man didn’t make a convincing argument.(Or, the one in which trans man Jim Kirk really doesn't want a physical, and starts a lifelong friendship in the process.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> There is a drop (if that) of Trans!Jim content so I'm helping to fix that. I'm definitely going to write more for Trans!Jim and stick them in a series (not adding them as chapters to this fic; they'll be separate despite being in the same canon timeline). Everything you see here is based off of my personal experiences as a trans man. Warnings for dysphoria and some references to alcohol.

Bones knows to have a strong drink ready every time Kirk goes in for his physical.  He doesn’t get it until the end, after he’s been poked and prodded and scanned and evaluated, but he always gets it, and Bones always knows what kind of alcohol he’s in the mood for that day.  He’d had once heard that the best doctors know you, like  _ really _ know you, in the way that they can diagnose you as you walk in the door, and the medical instruments are just a formality.  That you should know your doctor so well that it feels like visiting a friend instead of a sterile environment brimming with reminders of human mortality.  That a good doctor takes care of your soul, not just your body.  He hadn’t believed that when he’d first met Dr. McCoy, but hell if the man didn’t make a convincing argument.

At the beginning of the  _ Enterprise’s _ five-year mission, the whole crew was required to report to sickbay over the course of a week and get themselves checked out.  Just a routine physical to have some an up-to-date medical information regarding everyone on board.  For Kirk, it felt like being asked to scale a mountain.  He put off the physical for days, wondering if he simply didn’t show his face that Dr. McCoy would assume that he was too busy with his new command to find time to get checked out.  However, the brevity of his few interactions with the good doctor hadn’t clued Kirk in to McCoy’s willpower, and the night after Kirk’s weeklong window was up, there was a chime outside his personal quarters, signaling a visitor.

“Come in,” he called, and in walked Dr. McCoy.

“Evening, Captain,” he said, glancing around the room.  He gave Kirk a smile, finding a convincing balance between being friendly and having an obvious mission.  “Now, you’ll have to forgive me, I’m sure you like to run a tight ship, and likewise I like to run a tight sickbay, so I’ll get right to the point.  You’re the only crewmember on board who hasn’t come by for a physical.”

Kirk felt a small lump in his throat.  How silly he was, to have honestly believed that he’d tricked one of Starfleet’s best medical officers.

“Is that so?” he asked, trying to keep his composure.  “You’ll have to forgive me, Dr. McCoy.  There’s so much to get done as captain of a new starship.  It must’ve slipped my mind.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” McCoy said.  “That’s why I’m not holding it against you.  Just figured I’d come to you personally and remind you now that you’re off duty.  Hopefully we can get this done within the hour, and then I’ll send my report off to Starfleet that everyone’s in good health.”

Before stepping on board the  _ Enterprise, _ Kirk had read Starfleet’s profiles on each of his senior officers, Dr. McCoy being no exception.  He knew that the man was from Georgia, born and raised, and could hear the twinge of an accent in his voice.  He himself was from Iowa, and though the South and the Midwest were separated by hundreds of miles, the people there spoke in similar ways.  They had a habit of acting direct when they were really buttering someone up, using too many words to pad a command in politeness.  Kirk knew in his gut that the doctor wasn’t going to leave his quarters until he agreed to get his physical, but he’d beaten no-win scenarios before.  Jim Kirk was not a man to go down without a fight.

“I don’t believe I have time tonight,” he said cooly.

“Really?” McCoy asked.  “Well, at least tell me when you’re planning on coming in.  It’ll have to be soon.  Starfleet’s already waiting on my report.”

Kirk paused, trying to keep his expression from showing just how fast his thoughts were racing.

“Captain,” McCoy said, taking Kirk’s pause as an opportunity to press his case further, “with all due respect, I’ll be back here every night until you get your physical, and I’ll be back here the following year, and the year after that, until this five-year mission is up, or some monstrous black hole swallows this ship, or the Klingons blast our engines to dust.  So, we can make this easy and you can come with me now, or I’ll pull teeth until that happens anyway, and I’m not even a dentist.”

Kirk stayed silent for another moment, regarding Dr. McCoy and how plainly he laid out how Kirk’s hands were tied.  His stomach started to feel a bit sour, and he could hear his pulse beating a little more clearly in his ears.  Part of being a captain was knowing what battles to pick, and slowly, it was becoming obvious to Kirk that this battle wasn’t worth jeopardizing his relationship with his chief medical officer.

“Who’s in sickbay right now?” Kirk asked.

“Oh, just me and Nurse Chapel, maybe an ensign or two,” Dr. McCoy said.  “But you really only need to deal with me for the next fifteen minutes or so, if that’s what you’re on about.”

Kirk nodded slightly to himself.

“Fine,” he said.  “Lead the way, doctor.”

The short trip to sickbay felt like walking a mile with lead shoes, as Kirk’s nerves made the lump in his throat more pronounced.  As he followed McCoy through sickbay’s sliding doors, the acid in his stomach was starting to cause him physical pain, and he coughed, wondering what kind of impression he’d make if vomited on the doctor’s shoes.  It was this noise that caused Dr. McCoy, who had already been partially observing his captain on the walk over, to give Kirk his full attention.  He made eye contact with the other man, as if to tell him that they were going to speak plainly in private, and then called to Nurse Chapel, the only other officer in the room.

“Nurse, I think you’re good for the night,” he said.  “Why don’t you go home a little early?”

She gave Dr. McCoy a look of slight confusion, but the prospect of an early night wasn’t worth passing up, and after thanking the doctor she exited the sickbay and headed for her quarters, leaving Kirk and McCoy to themselves.

“Now, captain,” McCoy said.  “Do you want to tell me why I’d sooner believe you’re being lead to an execution than a physical?”

In his mind, Kirk thought of ten different excuses he could tell the doctor, but in a moment he realized it didn’t matter.  None of them felt as convincing as the truth anyway.  He was one of the lucky ones, if you could even call them that, who’d figured it all out relatively young.  By the time he’d made it to the Academy, no one questioned that he was James T. Kirk.  He’d avoided doctors like the plague, opting to spend a few extra days sick in his dorm then have to go to health services and face his own reality.  Nevermind that for an ear infection or a sore throat, there would’ve been no risk for discovery.  He’d swapped out the “F” on his medical forms for an “M” some time ago.  

However, this felt different.  Dr. McCoy was going to find out sooner or later why the anxiety he felt around his body was so profound, if not because of this physical, but because something about having one doctor for five years in space felt like a new intimacy he couldn’t quite place.  Feeling a sudden burst of either recklessness or confident, Kirk decided to face the problem head-on.

“Doctor, my body’s not one quite so typical of a man,” he said, and realizing he was still talking in euphemisms, he decided it was time to commit to the truth.  “They told me I was female, McCoy, when I was born, and being faced with that fact isn’t something I necessarily enjoy.”

It took McCoy only a second to take in the news, nodding mainly to himself before speaking.

“Well, captain, that’s good to know,” he said.  “Doesn’t change much, but good to know regardless.”  He gestured to one of the empty beds and said, “why don’t you sit up there and I’ll check you out, as painlessly as possible, of course, and then, in return, you can give me an excuse to open a new bottle of brandy that’s been sitting on a shelf in my quarters, staring at me since I unpacked it.”

Kirk tried not to look stunned and the doctor’s casualness in the face of what he viewed as his most precious secret, but he recovered quickly, feeling himself give McCoy a real, genuine smile as he sat up on the bed.  As McCoy promised, the physical was painless, and finished in under fifteen minutes.  A couple of minutes after that, they were sitting in his quarters, each with a rocks glass in their hand, sipping a brandy.

“No better way to know your doctor that over a good drink, that’s why I say, anyway,” McCoy said.  There was a glint in his eye that Kirk hadn’t seen before, and he swore it was because both of them felt at ease for the first time since McCoy had entered Kirk’s quarters that evening.  “I say we make this a tradition.  You’ll give me a lot of good excuses to start some of my nicer bottles.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Kirk said, gesturing his glass in McCoy’s direction.  “After all, doctor, I don’t plan on letting the Klingons shoot us out of the sky anytime soon.”


End file.
